Well, good morning. I just wanted to say thank you for once again, inviting me, not only on the trip that we had, it was a great outing, really enjoyed our time together, drew closer to know you better. And it was just a great time. And the evangelism part of it stuck out for me being from cross country evangelism, that was just the icing on the cake being able to be out there. Let's go to the Lord in prayer real quick here. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for another day that you've given us. Thank you for this time, Lord, that we can open up your word. I thank you for all that you do for us and how kind and gracious you are. The week that we had and the abilities that you gave us to go out and to serve you, Lord, and to just enjoy fellowship. We ask now, Lord, that once again that you would be with us and fill us with your spirit and that everything we'd say and do would be pleasing and honoring to you for you are worthy, oh God. We praise you and we love you and we thank you in the precious name of Jesus Christ. Amen. So my message today is going to be on the sovereignty of God in evangelism. I thought it would be appropriate being that we just evangelize and we're planning on doing some evangelism. And just a reminder in that evangelism that God is in control of every aspect of what we do out there. So I just want to make sure that when we go out there that we're Spirit filled and God honoring in how we do our evangelism, knowing that salvation is of the Lord and that everything that we do, it's not dependent upon us, but it's dependent upon God and his mercy towards whom he'll save. So I thought it would just be a good place to start. And so we'll start with what is divine sovereignty? Can anybody tell me? So what is sovereignty? Well. Right, yes. He right. It's it's someone ruling like a king, a potentate, they would say it's sovereignty. He he's in control of a of a dominion of an empire or a kingdom. And if we if we look at it from it from a A human view of like when we picture what kings can do and the power that they have, it kind of falls short really of what true sovereignty is. True sovereignty is God and He's the one. And I'm going to give a few things here, but if you will open your Bibles and I think there's a lot of good verses in the scriptures to Romans 11. And we're going to look at verses 33 to the end of the chapter. There's a lot of good verses. You know, you can go to Daniel. He's he does whatever he wants in the armies of heavens. And the people of the earth are as grasshoppers before him and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? We see there's a lot of verses. But I think this one kind of is a good verse to go to these verses here. And listen what it says about. And this is what I feel like what God's sovereignty is. Oh, the depth of the riches. both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. For who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor? Who has first given to him that it shall be recompensed unto him again? And this is the verse right here, I think that sums it all up right here. Verse 36. For of him and through him and to him are all things. to whom be glory forever. Amen. A. W. Pink, he says that the sovereignty of God is God is God. Not just in name, but in reality. This is the Godness of God. It's who God is. It's God being God. So what are some of those characteristics of God being sovereign? Well, we know that he's almighty. There's nothing God cannot do. He's all powerful. Think about the power that God has. It's unfathomable. We can't even go to the depths of the power of God. He took nothing and he spoke the world into existence. He said, let there be light. There was light. The power of God. I mean, just everything that God does is powerful. He's also the highest, he's supreme. He's up and there's none higher than him. So he's omnipotent, he's all powerful. He's the highest of the highest. He's the creator, the ruler over all that there is. Showing his power and his majesty being over everything. He's in control of everything, I would say is the easiest way to just say it. He's in control of everything that happens. R.C. Sproul said there's not a maverick molecule in the universe that God is not in control of. Everything. Spurgeon said that even the dust particles are all part of the plan of God. He controls them. When you pull back the curtain, you see the light shine through. You see a little. It's all going according to God because he's in control. He's self existent. He didn't need nothing. He's perfect in power. He's perfect in his goodness. He's perfect in his wisdom. He's perfect in his knowledge. He has perfect knowledge. God doesn't learn things. God just knows because he's in control of it all. Psalm 115 says, our God is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases. Sovereignty is God does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants, to whoever he wants, and he answers to nobody. He's the supreme. He's in control. He's the highest authority. He's king of kings. Kings are high authority here, but he's over them. He's above them. Matter of fact, the Bible tells us that he raises up kings and he takes them down. There's a lot of power in that, in his authority. He's the highest in justice, if we look at his justice. He's the judge of all the earth who shall do right. Supreme judge. In Isaiah 6, it talks about God. Isaiah sees the Lord seated on his throne, high and lifted up. and his train filled the temple. Someone said that he rules the universe with his feet up. He's in control. The second way God is sovereign is in salvation. I mean, think about it. When we pray for people, right? We pray because we know that we can't save a person. We know that it's of God. Acts 13, 48. All who are ordained to eternal life believe. They were ordained by God to believe. Jonah 2, 9. He says, Salvation is of the Lord. So when we pray for people, right, we're not praying, oh, Lord, will you give this person the ability to get saved on their own so that they can be a Christian? No, we don't do that. We say, oh, Lord, we are hopeless and helpless. And so is that person. So we come to you and we cry out to you for their soul, that you and your mercy and your goodness would save that soul to the praise of your glorious grace. We know that we can't do anything apart from Him. Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. So we have to be dependent upon God, who is sovereign in our evangelism when we go out. We have to be dependent upon Him. Prayer is so important in the work of evangelism is that we go before God and we say, God, we lay this out here. We want to be faithful. We want to honor you. But we know that if you don't work, then nothing's going to happen. If your spirit doesn't move upon them and upon us, nothing's going to happen. You'll still get the glory when we preach God's word, but we have to say, Lord, please help us. And the absolute sovereignty of God that we can rest upon is knowing that before in eternity past, before the foundation of the world, God chose to, out of his own freedom, to save a people for himself. It was his own wise choice. It was his own will. God did it all because of his good pleasure. He chose to save a people. So we can go out there doing evangelism, trusting that God has a people out there that, as Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. And we can go out there trusting that when we proclaim the good news that his sheep are going to hear his voice and God's going to draw people. And God is not only all of this, but he's also, he's an unfathomable. We can't even fathom the depths of him. He's incomprehensible. It was Richard Baxter who said, we can know God, but we'll never comprehend him. And we were talking about this, about how heaven is gonna be probably part of that, is just learning more and more about God, but never exhaustively. And if we can know God exhaustively, then we've made a God of our own kind. We've made a God to suit ourself. And we'll see that, you know, you'll talk to people, say, my God would never do this. That's right, because your God doesn't exist, because you've made up your God. We're talking about the God of the Bible who does whatever he pleases. We have to understand that, that he's in control in some, 50, verse 21, he says, you thought I was like you. You thought I was altogether like you. God's ways are above our ways. His thoughts are above our thoughts. As high as the heavens are above the earth are his ways than our ways and his thoughts than our thoughts. He's in control. See, God is sovereign over everything or he's not sovereign at all. He has to be, and he is. So that we can have peace in that, we can have rest in that, knowing that God is in control when we do our evangelism and everything that happens in our life. Listen to what Charles Spurgeon said about the doctrine of God's sovereignty. He said, fewer doctrines of the Christian faith are more comforting than the sovereignty of God. The doctrine of God's sovereignty is a constant nourishment for the soul. The sovereignty of God is a sweet pillow that we can rest our head upon at night. It's comforting. It's comforting to know that when we go out and we evangelize, that it doesn't rest upon us. Now, we are to be faithful with the proclamation. We're to be faithful to go out and to tell people the good news of the gospel. But ultimately, it doesn't rest upon us. It rests upon God. So that's why as an evangelist, I can go out, I can preach God's word, I can tell people, I can open up the scriptures, give them gospel tracts, and at night I can go home and I can lay my head down in peace, knowing that I did what God has called me to do, and I did it faithfully, but that The results are not upon me. See, there's a problem with being results-driven in your evangelism. When you become results-driven, then if you don't see results, then somehow you think, maybe I'm not doing it right. And then what happens is you start to get into pragmatism or man centered techniques to draw people and to hear God's word. And I'm not opposed to, you know, pizza parties or purpose driven barbecues or anything like that. The fact of the matter is, is that in those things, if you're not given the gospel at the barbecue that you invited these people, then all you had was a barbecue. You didn't have a message to give them. And we know that it says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Not by your pizza or your water bottles, but by the word of God. So we have to be faithful to proclaim God's word. So that was just a quick overview of the sovereignty of God that we can trust God as we go out there knowing that it's of him. So what is evangelism? And I know that most of you here have evangelized and you know what it's about. It's the good news. It's the gospel. It's about Jesus Christ. The center of our evangelism is the gospel, but also The center of that message is Christ. That is the most important thing that we want to get out there, is we want to talk about and tell people about who Christ is. That's what's going to save. And it's not our words that save people. It's the word of God that saves people. So evangelism is the going and telling of the good news. Proverbs 11.30 says, He that winneth souls is wise. You know, and it does tell pastors, it says, and he tells Timothy, Paul tells pastors, he says, do the work of an evangelist. But it doesn't just rest upon the pastor's shoulders as a congregation that he goes out and does evangelism. We're all called to do it. We're all called to be evangelistic in whatever sphere of life that is. And so many people want to say, I don't have the gift of evangelism. Well, that's fine. You don't need the gift of evangelism. We have the command by God to go into all the world and preach the gospel. We have the command of go into Samaria, Judea, Samaria, and all the ends of the earth. and be my witnesses. So we have this duty as Christians, and our duty is to go out and to tell people the good news. And we can do that through handing out of gospel tracts. We can do that at one-to-one witnessing. We can do it by preaching the word. When we're preaching, we're preaching the truths of God's word that are revealed in scripture, the life, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We go out there and we make Christ known. We tell them about our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the gospel about what Christ has done. And it's our duty to go out there. It's a command. It's the great commission. The great commandment is to go out into all the world and preach the gospel. And I know I'm preaching to the choir here, because a lot of you are evangelistic, and that's great. But I just want to remind you that we don't want to grow weary in well-doing. We want to stay focused. We want to know that. Because even with us, like when we go out there, we have to understand that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. That's all we have. We have nothing else to offer. We don't have anything else when we go out there. We have the gospel. No matter what, the gospel being the power of God, the gospel going forth, the word of God going forth, it's gonna accomplish what it set out to do. So we don't have to be concerned. We ask, of course, we pray that people will get saved, that God will use it in that way. But if it doesn't, it hardens the hearts. And it's a two-edged sword, the Bible says. So for some, it may slice them and make them tender, where others, it slices and it makes them bitter, and it makes them harder. But our job is to go out there with the power of God, which is in the gospel. And we're all to be all at it. It's a job that we've all been commanded to do. It's like I said, it's just not the evangelist or the pastor's job. As a Christian, wherever God has put us in a sphere of life, we're to be faithful in that and with the opportunities that we've been given. Charles Spurgeon said, if you have no desire to see others saved, you're not saved yourself. Be sure of that. Someone who wants to bring the gospel to a lost and dying world sees that they understand that these people are lost and that they're on their way to hell. And so we want to get out there and we want to be faithful. And we have to be careful in the evangelism part, because what happens is sometimes we put the cart before the horse. And we say what is so we say what is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. What is the chief end of evangelism? Well, a lot of times it becomes we want to see people saved. We want souls to be saved. And that's why we do this. That's not the main focus. Our focus is to glorify God, to be God honoring in our evangelism. And secondly, we want to see people saved. We want people to be passed from death to life. So we have to understand that we're not gonna make the saving of souls first, but first and foremost is to glorify God. Martin Lloyd-Jones said this, our evangelism must start with the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, the demands of the law, the punishment meted out by the law. We have to use the law in our evangelism. People have to understand that they're in a bad place. They're in danger right now because of their sin. And the law is a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. It's a mirror to show them. And no matter where God puts us, we're to be faithful in that sphere. You may be on your job. You have to talk to the people. I mean, think about it. When you're on your job, men and women will talk about things that are horrible and vile at the workplace. And yet, when we go to speak about Christ, we're gonna shy away while people are saying vile things? No, we have to be staying firm. When those opportunities arise, even at the workplace, yes, we give our employer a full day's work, but when there's opportunities that open up, we need to be faithful and we need to tell people about God and what he requires and that there's a day coming that men and women are going to give an account of their life before the King of Kings, that we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. It's so important that we do that in our opportunities that the Lord has given us. And we want to be faithful in preaching the gospel to all creatures. And then evangelism isn't just asking Jesus into your heart. It's not just leading someone in a sinner's prayer. It's not all these things that you know what it's not. I understand that. But it's a message that we bring to them, a message of hope, a message that only comes through Jesus Christ being the only way to salvation. It's a narrow way. We have to remind them that. That it is. And because, you know, today it's everyone says all roads, they lead to heaven. No, all roads lead to God. And then they're going to be judged. And then where are they going to go? So they have to come through. And Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. So we have to go through Christ. So we have to remember that in our evangelism. And he's given us the Great Commission. It's not the omission. We're to be faithful in that. He had so many people, so many churches, even good reformed churches are very not evangelistically minded, good churches that preach good sermons that have good theology. But yet it seems like when it comes to evangelism, they're the frozen chosen. And they have no heart for the lost. And they may not be hyper Calvinist in their minds or in their theology, but in their practice, they actually are because they're not doing what God has commanded them to do. And it's sad. It's sad to see that because there's nothing more powerful than a Christian who has the doctrines of grace, knows who God is, has the scriptures hidden in his heart, who can go out there in a lost and dying world and stand firm with the sword of the Spirit and be able to proclaim to people the gospel, the good news. There's power in that. And we never put down our sword. We never bow to the culture. We always come out there. Thus saith the Lord is our thing. I'm all for presuppositional apologetics. I'm all about apologetics. I believe that, you know, we should have a defense and an answer for the hope that is within us with all gentleness and meekness. And, you know, we're not out there to win arguments, but we're also not out there to lose them because we have the truth. So what I'm saying is, is that when we go out there, this is what we have. We have the Word of God. We go and we don't give that up because so many people say, well, well, you know, that's that's a Bible. It was written by a Bronze Age goat herders who, you know, were uneducated. And so how could you that still be relevant for today? Well, that's our authority. That's the highest authority that we can appeal to. See, we don't give that away. We have to stand on that. We have to stand on God's truth. Now, that's not the gospel, the apologetics. It stops the mouth. It's going to stop them so that we can bring the gospel so that we can talk to people about, yes, there's a day coming. You're going to stand before the God you know exists. And you know that God exists because in Romans 1, it says you're without excuse. But now the gospel, we can bring that in because even with apologetics, you can go so long back and forth and back and forth with apologetics and never really get anywhere. So it's important that we use it, but just as a tool, in a sense, to get us to that point where we stop the mouth and then we can bring forth the Word of God. So we know that they can hear the good news and that we can go home knowing that we were faithful and that God is the one who saves people. He could have done it another way, but he didn't. This is the way he chose. And, you know, just like the Apostle Paul, he said, necessity is laid upon me. He says, woe is me if I preach not the gospel. We have to trust that God is going to use our words. We have the words in us, and we should be ones who want to go out and be faithful because of what God has done for us. And there should be, like Jeremiah says, a fire in our bones. And like Paul is saying, woe is me if I preach not the gospel. We have a message that saves people, that saves sinners. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. Richard Baxter said our mouths were created for this purpose. to, excuse me, to go out and to tell people the good news of the gospel. So we need to be faithful. God has ordained the method and the ways that we go and win souls for him. And God's sovereignty is in the motive of it. In evangelism, people ask, if God is sovereign, has elected people to save, why evangelize? Well, if he hasn't, then why would we do it? We go out because we know that God has chosen a people who he's going to save. And ultimately, the reason our motive for going out and preaching God's word and being evangelistic is because we love Jesus Christ. And Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And the greatest commandment is to go and to tell people the good news of the gospel, which is what we've been told by Christ. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. So because we love him, we go out and we do it. And it also, we go out there because we know that this world is dying. And it's a great opportunity to show a lost and dying world our love for our Savior by being faithful, not just by our words, but by our actions, but by being faithful and going out and actually doing what we've been commanded to do. It's obedience to God's Word. and that we can go out there equipped, knowing that we're being faithful and God has given us that seal to go out and be faithful. And how can we get better at it? By doing it. By doing it. Someone asked George Whitefield and said, how do you preach good on Sunday? He says, by preaching good every day. How do we get better at evangelism? How do we get more zealous at it? By doing it more, by being involved in it more. And I appreciate this church. You have the hearts for the lost and we saw that because we went out and I saw the heart of people praying with people and talking to people about the things of God and preaching and the pastor standing up and preaching in front of his flock and in front of this lost and dying world and the congregation, other members stepping up and preaching God's word, showing that what God has done for them. We can go out there, but we have to remember, once again, apart from God, we're weak. We need the power of God to help us. We need God to move upon us and to move upon the people that are hearing God's word. And we can see it. And how do we know, how do we see these things? By going out and doing it. And you actually see the Bible being lived out in our lives. You see that this is what we were made for. We're made to be faithful witnesses, to go out and to proclaim God's message. Christ is worthy of us to go out there for what he did. He laid on his life for us. And so shall we not lay down our lives for him and go out there and be faithful in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation? They need to hear this message, this worthy message, because we have to understand these people are on their way to destruction and they're not even thinking about the things of God. That's why we need to stand. People aren't going to come to the church. We have to go out to them. We have to be faithful. And I think the most important thing is we have to have a sense of urgency in our evangelism. We trust God. We do it God's way. We do it biblically. We go out. We tell people about Christ, the center of our message. But we need that sense of urgency. And I'm guilty of it, too, where you get comfortable sometimes. You just don't want to go and do it. It's easier just to stay home and not do it. And I don't feel like it. It's been a long day. I'm tired. And then I've never gone out and done evangelism and come back and go, why did I do that? No, I always come back and I feel energized and invigorated. And I feel like God's spirit is in me. And so I think that we have to live our lives with that sense of urgency as we go out and we proclaim God's word. And then, I'm preaching a message coming up on the 14th at a church in Ohio. They go verse by verse, line by line, but every once in a while they want to throw a topical in. that chose me, and my topic is going to be this verse here. So teach us to number our days, O Lord, out of Psalm 90. I'm going to preach on that, on teach us to number our days. And I would say that here as I close, that Lord, teach us to number our days. Let us live a life that we labor for our King. We sang that song when we were gathered together. Let us labor for the master from the dawn till setting sun. Let us talk of all his wondrous love and care. faith so gather over on the other shore when the roll is called up yonder i'll be there so let us be faithful let us work hard at it lord teach us to number our days let us use each day wisely knowing that someday it's going to be our last and then when we stand before him we'll have no regrets in how we lived our life what a what a glorious day that's going to be when we stand before god and And says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. And we get to worship him and be with him face to face. So I hope that encourages you. And let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we do thank you, Lord, that you are in control, that you are sovereign, that you rule and reign. You're not like the kings of the earth. You sit upon your throne in heaven, and none can stay your hand or say unto you, what doest thou? You do whatever you please, and we can trust you, Lord, that you've commanded us to go out and to be faithful with the gospel, faithful in our evangelism. And we know that salvation is of the Lord, so we can go out there faithfully. Please bless us now, Lord. Bless our time. I lift up the pastor before you. I ask you to cover him under the shadow of your wings, that he would proclaim your word, that you give him clarity of mind and give him wisdom that he would exalt Christ in the preaching, Lord. And we thank you, Lord, for Jesus Christ and what you've done for us through him. Thank you, Lord, for a great salvation that you've given us. Bless us now as we fellowship and as we hear the word preached. May we worship you in the beauty of holiest. And I pray in Jesus's precious name. Amen.